Abstract
Ambient levels of 14C have been monitored near Ottawa, Canada by the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Geological Survey of Canada, since 1961. The 32 y of data on maple leaves documents the rapid increase of bomb-generated 14C in the mid-1960s and its exponential decline to the present. This bio-generated data set indicates that the half-life of bomb-generated 14C is 12 y as a result of dilution with prebomb 14C from the decay of organic matter and exchange with the oceanic reservoir, and, of course, a dilution from fossil fuel combustion. Atmospheric 14C activity will approach 10% of prebomb levels by the turn of the century, but it will be another century before the prebomb levels of atmospheric 14C are approached.
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